A man who defrauded companies by pretending to be a furniture exhibition organizer was sentenced to eight years in prison, fined 80,000 yuan (US$12,313) and ordered to reimburse his victims, the People’s Court in Jiading District said yesterday.

Local police received a complaint in September 2013 from one of the companies, which complained that Huangcheng, a firm owned by the defendant, surnamed Chen, failed to honour its contract.

The company alleged that Huangcheng had said it was the official service company for the 2013 Shanghai International Furniture Fair. But after it paid a 148,500 yuan “booth fee,” the company found it did not have access to the event because Huangcheng was not the official service company, the court heard.

Police investigators found more than 10 other companies that had had similar experiences, said the court in a statement.

Huangcheng had sent invitations to companies via telephone or facsimile, offering to organise their participation at the “2013 Shanghai International Furniture Fair” at the Shanghai New International Expo Center in the Pudong New Area, police found.

As the annual event had been held in September for 18 years, the companies did not suspect anything and signed contracts with Huangcheng, submitting applications through it and paying booth fees.

But after that, Huangcheng stopped meeting his obligations and even turned down their requests for exhibitor manuals and other essentials such as booth information, the court heard.

They then came to the realization that Huangcheng was not organizing the fair at the Shanghai New International Expo Center, after noticing that their contracts and application forms did not include the address of the venue.

Huangcheng repeatedly dodged their refund requests and finally announced that the exhibition would be postponed.

Chen argued that he did not mean to cheat the companies as he had tried to organize the exhibition and had never said he was the contractor for the “19th Shanghai International Furniture Fair.” He also said that he had negotiated with clients the return of their money.

But victims insisted that Chen had deliberately led them to believe that it was the well-known event that takes place annually in Pudong.

The court ruled that Chen had cheated the companies, pointing out that he never made a genuine effort to organize the event, had no experience in that area and did not recruit professionals who did.

He could not prove he had been actively preparing for the exhibition, as he had spent nothing except a 10,000 yuan booking fee at Shanghai Science Hall.

The court concluded that fraud was Huangcheng’s main activity after it was established.

 *This article was published on shanghaidaily.com.